Abstract
ABSTRACT Much of empirical research on European integration relies on data published by European Union (EU) institutions concerning the EU’s laws and policies. However, despite wide disciplinary appeal and increasing regularization of data repositories such as Eur-Lex, researchers have so far not developed a standardized tool for accessing the main EU law databases. This research note presents the benefits of creating an open-source data collection infrastructure that takes advantage of the structured way in which data is published by the EU. I exemplify how software implementing this idea can be used by researchers.
Highlights
Countless studies across a wide range of disciplines exploit data on European Union (EU) laws
Usually each study comes with its own bespoke dataset, the data is frequently collected from the same source, the Eur-Lex website,1 which aggregates documents from EU institutions (Düro 2009; Bernet and Berteloot 2006)
This research note presents an alternative approach to collecting data on EU laws and policies
Summary
Countless studies across a wide range of disciplines exploit data on European Union (EU) laws. The eurlex package was developed to facilitate access to vast amounts of EU law data for researchers. The eurlex package provides access to data collated and indexed by the Publications Office, but it is important to remember that key decisions – what is published and in what form – remain in the hands of the authoring institutions.6
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